CIO Top of Mind: 1) Virtualization, 2) Collaboration, 3) How am I going to get #1 and #2 done?

According to a recent study by Network Instruments, three quarters of companies will have invested in virtualization and unified communications by the end of the year, despite the worst economic downturn since World War II. The biggest drivers behind this projection are the perceived cost savings and quick return on investments.

Susan Campbell of TMCNet summarizes saying: While this news is positive for this industry, the study also determined that some companies are not adequately prepared. In fact, 75 percent of the organizations that are rushing to roll out new network technologies do not have the tools and visibility necessary to monitor and troubleshoot performance problems.

This comprehensive study included nearly 450 CIOs, network engineers and IT managers throughout the world. It also explored the economy’s impact on virtualization and unified communications in addition to primary challenges in managing these technologies.

Key findings from the study highlight that more than half of all applications will run on virtual machines by 2011; companies deploying video conferencing solutions will double by 2010; 65 percent of network teams have not experienced layoffs and do not expect to in the near future; more than half of the surveyed companies lacked the appropriate tools or visibility into virtual environments; 80 percent struggle with identifying the problem source as their primary troubleshooting challenge; and 45 percent view virtualization as the greatest emerging monitoring challenge.

"While organizations have the right idea investing in technologies that reduce corporate expenses and improve productivity, they're failing to invest in appropriate monitoring tools," said Charles Thompson, product manager of Network Instruments, in a Monday statement. "This will actually create larger problems that can halt business processes and cause network teams to waste countless hours troubleshooting."

This is where partnering with a trusted managed service provider comes in. To get the job done, companies both large and small are turning to managed service providers to purchase: unified communications and collaboration "as a service" as well as virtualized infrastructure (virtual data center, virtual private clouds, storage as a service, compute as a service). I had an opportunity to participate on a webcast with the Kirk Laughlin of Information Week "Catching the Managed Collaboration Services Wave" where we discuss the business drivers fueling adoption of managed and hosted collaboration services. We also discuss how Cisco is uniquely enabling its managed service providers to "envision, build, market, and sell" managed services. To find a global list of the industry's leading "Cisco Powered" managed service providers, see the Cisco Powered Search tool: www.cisco.com/go/cpn. View the webcast and let me know your thoughts.

With regard to virtualization, as 75 percent of organizations have virtual network environments, the majority are running less than 25 percent of applications on virtual machines. This is expected to rapidly increase over the next two years. Yet as the majority of companies still cite monitoring in such an environment as a critical challenge, vendors will need to address this challenge and turn it into a market opportunity.

The study also found that the majority of companies will implement some form of unified communications within the next 12 months. More than half will have deployed video conferencing and unified messaging by 2010.

The Managed Collaboration and Virtualization Gold Rush is on!

Collaborating from a Distance: The Business Value of Teleworking

When gas prices surged to $5 last summer, something happened. Managers everywhere began embracing teleworking to help alleviate some of the pain inflicted at the pump. Often talked about, few managers openly promoted teleworking as an option. Now, deep into a recession, managers have come to realize that for your more senior talent, teleworking not only raises productivity, but also raises morale.

Much earlier in my career, I had a manager say that he wanted to see everyone in the office to make sure he understood what everyone was doing. He said that his style was to "manage by walking around". During a quarterly meeting, we had one of our senior leaders fly in for this meeting. Somebody asked him if he was supportive of teleworking and hiring talent that was not based on the same city as our office. His response was very clear - "If you want to rise in the company, you need to learn how to work from a distance and manage from a distance. The higher up you go, the more your direct reports will live in other cities."

Increasingly, companies are empowering their employees to telework. Enabled with Instant Messaging & "Presence" which allows you to see the availability of your employees at any time, managers feel more comfortable "letting go". What we've come to see over the past few years is that doing so, pays off in spades. Productivity increases of 10-20% are the norm with the added benefit of higher employee morale and loyalty. In a challenging economy when you can't afford to give raises and promotions, allowing people to telework 1-2 days a week, gives them more autonomy in how and when they get the job done. Having the ability to go for a run at lunch, wash your clothes in the middle of the day, or pick your child up from school at 3pm is a real benefit to your most prized assets - your people.

This week's "Trendwatcher" (Institute for Corporate Productivity), sites some great statistics supporting teleworking including research from the non-profit, Telework Coalition, that has found sizable productivity rises within the U.S. and abroad. Two of the findings are:

* Productivity increased 31% among the 9,000 telecommuters employed by British Telecom.
* At JD Edwards, telecommuters are 20% to 25% more productive than office workers (All, 2008).

Some experts say that telecommuting, especially in customer service jobs, will likely broaden and expand in the future. This growth is fueled by solutions such as Cisco's Unified Contact Center, which allows companies to deploy a "virtual contact center" and take customer calls, emails, or chat sessions from home. Not only does it give companies the ability to offer flexible work arrangements for their employees it also allows them to tap talent wherever they are in the world.

Nancy Gofus of Verizon offers some compelling reasons for adopting a teleworking program including: raising employee productivity, savings real estate costs, and going "green". Listen to her podcast.

Collaboration - Goes Mobile!

Well, what we've all been waiting for has arrived. The ability to leave a Web Conferencing session at your desk, transfer it to your mobile phone and continue the session while on the move. When you consider that 35% of mobile calls are made in transit, having the ability to take full featured web conferencing sessions (with voice and slides) has tremendous value in keeping employees productive while on the move.

At last week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Cisco-WebEx announced the ability to support mobile collaboration on the iPhone, RIM/Blackberry, and Nokia N60. Functionality includes the ability to transfer sessions in progress from your desk computer to your mobile and vice-versa. To increase the safety of users taking a web conference call from the road, Cisco has added a new "one click to join" feature. Several minutes before a scheduled call, WebEx will trigger the "one click" feature allowing the user to press one button and be connected to his full feature web-conference.

Small Business survival in a challenging economy

The economy has not been the friend of small business over the past 3 months. The sub-prime mortgage meltdown was a train wreck in slow motion. The last two weeks have seen the end of Wall Street as we know it. Main street banks are still here but the person you are used to dealing with might appear to have amnesia the next time you walk through the door. Banks are reassessing their risk posture and cutting back on loans to just about everyone.

The last two weeks have been catastrophic when thinking about the prospects of securing working capital to run your business.

What should a small business do in times like these?
1) Stay close to your banks
2) Stay close to your customers
3) Assure your employees

How can you leverage technology to help you weather the storm?
1) Leverage technology to improve employee productivity: investing in teleworking solutions, web conferencing, and web based training solutions
2) Improve customer satisfaction by investing in web based customer care solutions and on-demand collaboration. Even when your customers aren't buying - you must stay close to them!
3) Work with a trusted advisor to leverage managed services to help you deploy the technology solutions without the upfront expense and risk associated with typical IT investments.

You can find trusted SMB managed service providers on Cisco's website at:

Video las Vegas! ...from NXTcomm '08

Post date 6/17/08 - 9:42am

I'm here at the NXTcomm show in Las Vegas where everything is about Video. Video is changing everything- advances in video and collaboration technology have made us increasingly visual in the ways that we communicate and collaborate. On demand IPTV, Mobile Video, and Rich Media Collaboration solutions (including TelePresence video conferencing) are driving enormous traffic growth over service provider networks. Cisco just published it's Video Networking Index which predicts a doubling of traffic every year for the next four years.

The business implications for network owning service providers are huge. While Service Providers are counting on video and mobile data services as their revenue engine for the next few years, they must invest in new service creation to monetize video traffic -and- invest in an intelligent network that will support rich media traffic efficiently. Everyone here in Vegas understands that "seeing is believing" :)